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The Evolution 
of A Bootblack 

RUFUS • B- TOBEY 



T, 'i7. i-.o:;h 







X 



FINISHED PRODUCTS 

Returning from an extended Euro 
pean trip on an ocean steamer, I 
made the acquaintance of a fellow 
passenger, the head of the book de- 
partment of a leading New York 
publishing house. In "talking shop** 
with him, I found he was interested 
in The Boston Floating Hospital, 
which I founded. But he was more 
interested in other lines of my work 
of nearly a quarter of a century. He 
told me the question had been asked 
many times whether formative or 
reformative work permanently suc- 
ceeded. Using his own expression 
**Are there any finished products?'* 
After I had given him several in- 
stances, he urged me to write up 
enough to make a book and send the 
manuscript to him. I have not as 
yet found time to comply with his 
request, but for present purposes will 
give ''The Evolution of a Bootblack.'* 

3 



THE EVOLUTION 
OF A BOOTBLACK 

BORN of a slave mother, Nathan McGill 
knows the day and month and place of 
his birth, but not the year. But he also knows 
that as a pickaninny he was hungry for an 
education. The first steady money he 
earned was as a bootblack in a barber ,'shop. 
Next he learned the trade of barber, ac- 
quiring knowledge at irregular intervals 
until it became possible for him to matricu- 
late as a regular student in a Methodist 
Episcopal Academy at Jacksonville, Fla., 
whose principal secured for him a chance 
to run a barber shop at Monument Beach 
during the summer vacation. It was at 
this seaside resort, where I was convalescing 
from double pneumonia, that I made the 
acquaintance of McGill. He had then 
taken the entrance examinations at Boston 
University Law School. Knowing he would 
have a hard financial struggle to take the 
full course, I invited him to hunt me up 
in Boston whenever his jfinances should fail. 
That day came and I learned that he was 

5 

■WIW»WIWBWB! aiUlllLJlUIUlllW II IIMIII«WI IIWHWWW^ IUI I I ! ! ! l! ! l! !a Bra»Hll'fll 



THE EVOLUTION OF A BOOTBLACK 

living on one meal a day and that a scanty 
one. I assumed charge of his legal educa- 
tion, he in the meantime working at odd 
jobs to do his bit. I kept tabs on him, es- 
pecially to assure me that he would keep 
faith with me in his solemn compact to 
return to Jacksonville and devote his life 
to assisting his people. Even before gradua- 
tion the temptation came in the shape of an 
offer to locate North, a temptation repeat- 
edly offered down to the present hour. 

McGill's success at the bar was almost by 
leaps and bounds. Twice defeated in the 
lower courts, he having qualified in the 
State Supreme Court, won out on an appeal, 
the opposing lawyer being an ex -Attorney- 
General of the State. Perhaps the attitude 
of the whites of Florida can be inferred from 
the fact that after the victory had been 
well knov/n, the Legislature being in session, 
the lov/er house without even referring the 
matter to a committee, voted to prohibit 
negroes from practising in the higher courts 
of the State, but the State Senate voted 
down the measure. (Already on .the Statute 
book of Florida is a law making it a penal 



THE EVOLUTION OF A BOOTBLACK 

offense for a white person to teach colored 
pupils.) 

Though I had expended about $5,000.00 
on McGill's legal education to enable him 
to keep his head above water financially, I 
was not satisfied until he qualified to prac- 
tise before the United States Supreme Court. 
The exodus of negroes from Florida called 
McGill to Chicago for a brief season, and 
while there he qualified to practise before 
all the Courts of Illinois, so that now he can 
practise before the Courts of every State in 
the Union, as well as before the U. S. Su- 
preme Court. 

The Florida negro soldiers are making 
good ''over there," and a large part of Mc- 
Gill's practise is to protect their little 
property, and that of the men who have gone 
North, but who are gradually returning. 
White men with their prejudices and negroes 
who have accumulated surplus mioney have 
now a chance to foreclose mortgages and 
buy tax titles by legal processes. McGill 
is standing them off like wolves at bay until 
the owners can get clear title to their own. 
To make assurance double sure, I wrote 



THE EVOLUTION OF A BOOTBLACK 

a letter to Judge Brandeis, to whom I intro- 
duced McGill when he was admitted to 
the Bar and asked his advice about the latter 
"holding the fort." Judge Brandeis was 
emphatic in his advice to stick. Then I 
wrote to McGill's pastor to learn if he, too, 
thought the game was worth the candle, 
and a copy of his reply is enclosed. 

Several Southern State laws need to be 
tested before the U. S. Supreme Court. 
McGill stands ready to argue their uncon- 
stitutionality for bare expenses. Knowing 
the situation, I feel sure that a fund of 
$5,000.00 (about the sum I have personally 
secured and contributed myself) will tide 
him over the crises. 

McGill writes, "The cases I am chiefly 
anxious to take to the U. S. Supreme Court 
are the laws of the State which prohibit 
white persons teaching negro children, and 
the exclusion of colored men from serving 
on juries where colored men are tried." 

Regarding his home work he says "I 
have had several cases in the Supreme Court 
and a large number in the local courts 
and have been very successful with them 



THE EVOLUTION OF A BOOTBLACK 

all." But he adds ''I have handled many 
of these free because I felt it my duty though 
I am hard pressed for money. Per con- 
tra, I have received a letter today from a 
wealthy lawyer in Chicago offering me an 
opening, and have had several other offers 
from different parts of the country. One 
of these is from an ex-Assistant State At- 
torney in Chicago, but in the face of con- 
trasted conditions I feel God wants me 
here and can best use me, even though my 
expenses exceed my income." What a 
temptation! 

MR. NATHAN K. McGILL WAS 

Graduated from Cookman Institute, Jack- 
sonville, Fla., May, 1909. 

Graduated from the Boston University Law 
School, Boston, Mass., June, 1912. 

Admitted to Supreme Court of Florida, 
January, 1913. 

Admitted to Supreme Court of United 
States, January, 1917. 

Admitted to Illinois Supreme Court, April, 
1918. 



A 



THE EVOLUTION OF A BOOTBLACK 

Letter from McGilVs Pastor 

431 West Ashley St., 

Jacksonville, Fla. 
May 26, 1918 

MR. RUFUS B. TOBEY, 
201 Devonshire St., 
Boston, Mass. 
Dear Sir — 

Your letter was handed to me yesterday 
requesting the pastor of Ebenezer M. E. 
Church to write you in regards to Nathan 
K. McGill remaining in Jacksonville, Fla. 

I have just comie to Jacksonville this 
Conference year, however, I was born in 
the South (Tennessee), I am acquainted 
wdth the conditions, etc. 

I have discovered that Mr. McGill is a 
young man thoroughly prepared both by 
natural endowments and broad and deep 
education to lead our people — especially 
along the lines of the profession of Law. 

If there is any race in any section of our 
country who need legal advice along so many 
lines — it is our people here in the South. 
We have mien and women who know how 
to transact business, Ministers of the Gospel 
who are doing a splendid work in their field, 
and many physicians who are a benediction 
to our people. But the sad thing — we do not 
have m.any consecrated Christian lawyers 



THE EVOLUTION OF A BOOTBLACK 

who have had the advantage of the best 
law schools of the country to come among 
us and do for us what a young man so well 
prepared as Mr. McGill is — would be able 
to do as the years come and go. 

I know a young man of Mr. McGill's 
ability will be offered many positions in 
fields far more lucrative than could be found 
here in the South. But my honest convic- 
tion is, that, there is no greater field than 
here in the South — where he could exercise 
the gifts and graces which God has given 
him. I know that for some timie to come 
this field of labor must on the account of 
the conditions be to a large extent missionary 
— but as the people are educated and brought 
into a fuller realization of appreciation — 
Mr. McGill will begin to receive a recom- 
pense for his service. 

I would advise, therefore, that by all 
means, Mr. McGill ought to remain here 
in Jacksonville and fight it out "If It Takes 
All Summer" or even the rest of his Life. 
I am very truly yours, 

W. R. STEPHENS, 
Pastor of Ebenezer M. E. Church. 



U 



THE EVOLUTION OF A BOOTBLACK 

May 9, 1918. 

HON. LOUIS D. BRANDEIS, 

U. S. Supreme Court, 

Washington, D. C. 

My dear Judge Brandeis— 

One of the most pathetic utterances I have 
ever met is the lament, "I have trodden the 
winepress alone," and yet this is practically 
being forced from the lips of the young 
colored lawyer to whom you said some up- 
lifting words when he was admitted to prac- 
tice before your court. "N^fTien I asked your 
opinion about McGill remaining in Jackson- 
ville, it was to hearten him a bit. When I 
first met him he asked no favors of me, but 
I felt after getting a little of his history that 
he would be a good investment, provided he 
would enter into an agreement to do what 
might be called missionary work among 
his people. He told me at the outset that if 
he would agree to study for the ministry, 
persons stood ready to pay his expenses. 
But this was no temptation. A base offer 
presented itself to him whereby he could 
secure means for his legal education. But I 
found we agreed that there was the greatest 
possible need for a lawyer who would stand 
for principle in Florida, especially in Jack- 
sonville, where he had lived, and he turned 
down offers of advancement and increasing 

12 



THE EVOLUTION OF A BOOTBLACK 



income North to make the experiment which 
was uppermost in our minds. He made a 
reputation for character and ability very 
speedily. This has been in the main a 
handicap. I know as a matter of fact that 
if he had done a dirty piece of business for 
the son of a wealthy negro in Jacksonville, 
it would have given him a large fee and 
opened up more of this sort of business. 
This man believing that every man has his 
price could not understand why a lawyer 
who had just won a case in the State Su- 
preme Court against an ex-attomey-General, 
and who needed money badly could refuse 
a handsome fee. But McGill stuck to 
principle and thereby lost a friend and made 
a life-long enemy. In Florida courts the 
attorney who is assigned by the Judge to 
defend a criminal without counsel receives 
nothing for his services. A fellow alumnus 
at Amherst, one of the leading white lawyers 
in Jacksonville, told me that despite Mc- 
Gill's prestige and unquestioned ability, 
on the one hand, a negro with an important 
case had more confidence in an inferior 
white lawyer, and I could see from my in- 
vestigations on several trips to Jacksonville 
that Judge and jurors favor a white lawyer 
as against a colored one. 

Now in spite of everything "Looking to 
the right as God gives us to see the right" 



13 



THE EVOLUTION OF A BOOTBLACK 



why should McGill surrender? It means 
a financial burden to me so that he may make 
both ends meet, a burden which I find it 
heavy to shoulder. But I cannot resist 
the conviction that for McGill to exchange 
to a lucrative field will make bad matters 
worse. I will not say that we have come 
to the parting of the ways, but your kind 
opinion as to McGill' s duty, and I may say 
mine, will settle the question. 

May I hear from you soon about this 
matter? 

Sincerely, 

RUFUS B. TOBEY. 



?B ?,04 



1^ 



THE EVOLUTION OF A BOOTBLACK 

Hon. Moorfield Storey is President of the 
National Association for the Advancement 
of Colored People. McGill is local attorney 
for this Association, which has not sufficient 
funds to pay even McGill's expenses to 
Washington to argue these two probable un- 
c onstitutional laws of Florida: First, the 
law forbidding white teachers instructing 
colored children; second, the refusal to 
permit colored men to sit as jurors in cases 
where colored men are being tried. 

Ml . Storey writes me his approval of this 
movement. 

As a boy I knew fugitive slaves who told 
me of the brutality inflicted upon them by 
their masters, which made me an abolition- 
ist. Largely because the negro was given 
the suffrage prematurely many became de- 
generate, so that not a few old time aboli- 
tionists lost their interest in the negro . 
But the present war is giving him an op- 
portunity. Over 1250 negroes are in the 
next call and are to be sent in training im- 
mediately for service. You must have 
read the story of the two heroic negro 
fighters, Johnson and Roberts. There were 

15 



THE EVOLUTION OF A BOOTBLACK 

members of the first American colored unit 
at the front. *'To put to flight a dozen 
Germans is a tale of epic proportions. 

" Their Captain believes that they frus- 
trated a well developed plan to attack an 
important point. No wonder they got the 
French Cross for their gallantry. They 
should have at once every honor America 
can give them." 

McGill is helping to create a new at- 
mosphere into which such men can return. 
He is also caring 'for their homes and 
families. But he must relinquish all such 
work unless he is sustained where he is. 



16 



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